Lemon
Mousse Tart in a Gingersnap Crust
The past couple of weeks have been pretty
frantic work-wise, with work over-flowing into my evenings and weekends (and
encroaching on my time on the tennis court). Which doesn’t leave a lot of time
for blogging, either. I was determined to put up a post
today, though, so I
chose to make a super-simple dessert that I love, Lemon Mousse Tart in a
Gingersnap Crust. The crust is nothing more than gingersnap crumbs and melted
butter, patted into a tart pan and baked for a short time. The mousse is a
simple lemon curd
cooked on the stove, chilled, and then combined with whipped
cream. The trick to lemon curd is to make sure you cook it long enough so that
the yolks thicken, without over-cooking it and causing the mixture to curdle.
(If you do over-cook it slightly, any
bits of cooked egg should get strained
out when you pass the curd through the fine-mesh sieve.) A small amount of
gelatin gives the mousse some body and keeps it from falling apart when sliced.
I don’t like to add too much though, as the beauty of this mousse, aside from
its ease of preparation, is its velvety texture, and gelatin has a way of
turning velvet to rubber.
